Our hell on earth is close to home

THEY huddle around fires in the street, their little bodies shivering in near-zero winter temperatures because they don't feel safe at home.

More than three-quarters of them come from homes with no jobs.

Children as young as six are lured into a life of drugs and drink, forced to turn to crime before they are barely old enough to go to school.

This is Cherbourg, a town just a few hours' drive from Brisbane, but largely forgotten as it faces losing an entire generation to drugs, crime, violence and hopelessness.

Official government data has named it the most disadvantaged area in Australia, with community leaders blaming entrenched generational unemployment for its spot at the bottom of the pile.

Shocking figures from the State Government's own Department of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Partnerships show that in a town of just 1249 people, 399 children - or 79 per cent of kids - come from homes with no jobs.

Just 4.1 per cent of the town's 18-24 year olds are in work, study or training - compared to 66 per cent of non-indigenous Queenslanders and 36 per cent of indigenous Queenslanders - while unemployment across the board is a debilitating 48.6 per cent.

Residents of Cherbourg are also 13 times more likely to be the victim of an assault or offence against the person, and 38 times more likely to end up in hospital after being attacked than other Queenslanders.

Cherbourg elder and community justice group member Emma Stewart. Picture: Lachie Millard

From a Stolen Generation, elder Emma Stewart said the community was now dealing with a lost generation.

"It's not stolen. It's lost. It's a lost generation of our kids today," elder and community justice group member Ms Stewart said.

Children as young as six are turning to crimes like arson, setting fire to the local school. Older kids are stealing aerosol cans from nearby shops and chroming, while others are sniffing glue and petrol, using illicit drugs and stealing cars.

Ms Stewart said shops in nearby towns had agreed not to sell aerosols to Aboriginal kids but some of their own dysfunctional parents were buying the deadly inhalants for them instead.

Police were forced to send in a strike force to tackle the crime spree being blamed on Cherbourg teens that earlier this year included repeated ram raids by stolen cars as far away as Toowoomba and even armed robberies committed by young children.

Among other incidents, police cars, ambulances and even the rescue helicopter were pelted with rocks by out-of-control youths, elders said.

One ambulance was carrying a small baby in desperate need of hospital care.

Nurses at the hospital are being escorted in and out of town by security officers after repeated incidents that are understood to have included an armed robbery by a child demanding a health worker's car keys.

Police say the trouble centred on a small hardcore group of teens, aided by a number from outside the community, and order has now been restored.

One operation in May resulted in 15 offenders, mainly teenagers, being charged with 63 offences.

In July, four teens - aged 17, 15 and two aged 13, - stole a car in Springfield outside Ipswich and led police through nearby towns before a stinger device finally stopped them on the road into Cherbourg.

In January, a group of 20 juveniles and four adults were slapped with 110 charges related to stealing and using seven cars in what local member and Opposition Leader Deb Frecklington described in a letter to Police Minister Mark Ryan as something the nearby Murgon community feared was a "significant crime wave" that was "escalating".

Community members say unless the cycle is broken, and jobs, opportunities and hope is found for their young people, Cherbourg will remain a basket case. Some elders tell of regularly finding children as young as six huddled around fires in the street in near-zero winter temperatures because they don't feel safe at home.

They see the youths being caught in a revolving door of frustration, crime, jail and substance abuse, repeating the mistakes their then-teenage parents made before them.

Primary schoolteacher and Wakka Wakka elder Bevan Costello said the town has been wracked by "kids having kids" and a breakdown in traditional family and tribal units.

He fears someone will be killed by a stolen car or shot during a break-in.

Police and others point to progress being made - four young boys successfully completed a young motor offenders course overthe school holidays - and youth justice say they are dealing with a relatively small number of offenders - 44 - for a district that stretches beyond Cherbourg to Murgon and larger nearby town Kingaroy.

Mayor Arnold Murray said the council is doing what it can; trying to create jobs and rebuild the community with a proud sporting heritage. He said the council was hoping to open a recycling plant soon that would create jobs.

But the town is still the stage for violent bare-knuckle street fights that are filmed and published on social media and a target for those who would blame all the district's crime on Cherbourg's youth.

Ms Frecklington, the local MP whose husband Jason works on a farm owned by the council, says Cherbourg is a good community betrayed by a State Government only interested in photo opportunities and not making desperately-needed improvements.

.

As long ago as May 2016, the local justice group wrote to the Government's own Productivity Commission asking for more police on the streets and crisis services that operated beyond business hours.

"The council, mayor, elders and directors of the Justice Group have all told whoever will listen to please consider extra policing or police support officers … at night when most of the offending occurs and young people walk the streets petrol-sniffing, smoking pot or vandalising properties," they wrote. "No one listens and everyone cries poor."

A Palaszczuk Government spokeswoman said: "Cherbourg has unique challenges that we are working with the community to resolve and we are confident that our approach is paying off.

"It's a shame, but unfortunately no surprise, that Deb Frecklington has decided to play politics with these serious matters instead of working with us." Among projects listed by the State Government are $1 million spent upgrading the women's shelter, improvements to sporting fields and backing to start the recycling depot.

But among the stark evidence of problems, elders say they are forced to operate their own after-dark street patrol to collect at-risk kids and take them home - if that is safe - or find them safety elsewhere.

Long-term, they want funding for a "healing centre" where traditional values can be applied to help sort their kids out and keep them out of juvenile detention and jail.